#please consider blocking or otherwise filtering this blog if that is something that stresses you out <3

[ghost-bxrd]

Hey I’m not trying to be rude but I noticed you mentioned w*ndigo as some thing you wanted to write in the future? The Algonquian and other tribes are very clear that their culture is closed and people aren’t supposed to say, write, or even think that word. I’m not trying to call you out or shame you, a lot of people don’t know since it’s been appropriated so much in media. While people outside of these tribes just see them as something on the same line as vampires or mermaids, it’s really a much bigger deal than that. One of the strongest responses from a member I’ve seen was something like “I wish we’d never let them learn that word.” This is a highly controversial topic that causes a great deal of pain to many members of the community, and even seeing or hearing the word can be deeply triggering. If you do want to write about similar creatures, Crypt Tv created a similar creature called the Mordeo and their horror shorts are on YouTube

Hi, I know this is out of genuine concern, but I also want to emphasize that this is a controversial topic.

I have done some research on this, and there are equally as many people saying it’s okay to say/write/read about it, as there have been people abolishing its use.

Fact is, this creature is featuring in quite a number of modern media to date. Most notably the Supernatural fandom and the Until Dawn fandom (that I know off the top of my head at the moment). Not to mention numerous songs. Or the very real, psychological phenomena named after it. Though obviously we could argue about the accuracy of its depiction in relation to the original lore.

It is a folklore, a fascinating one, that I take to be mostly about human greed, selfishness, and circumstance. (A lot of times now mixed with the modern depiction of antlers/rotten deer with too sharp teeth.) People know about it. People will invariably find it fascinating. People will write/talk/sing about it. It’s human nature.

Personally, I think it becomes a problem the moment you try to pass it off as something of your own creation rather than trying to encourage people to learn the original folklore. So even if I do end up using the broad inspiration and go with calling it a Mordeo instead, the core of it will always remain with the folklore of the Wendigo. And I will always point back to it, because knowledge of the original version is better than running around thinking that my abstract version is the right one.

But like with all things online, I cannot stress enough that you curate your own experience and can decide on what to see and what not to. If this is something you absolutely do not agree with, please feel free to block me or otherwise filter my content.

[smabrothers]

11 Reasons Why You Should Update Your Site this Year

DO YOU LOVE YOUR WEBSITE?

If the answer is no or not really, you shouldn’t even continue reading this article. Just go visit our shop, choose a design that you like and start building a website that you’ll be proud to share online, and invite prospects to browse through. A site that will effectively promote your work and help you book more clients. Otherwise, what’s the point in keeping this powerful marketing tool, investing time and effort into it, if it doesn’t help your business grow and flourish?

It’s not enough to JUST have a website. It needs to look good, it needs to present information in a clear, accessible way. It needs to create a strong first impression and make your prospects feel like they’ve found THE ONE. Otherwise, you’re competing for the attention of the same audience alongside another few hundred businesses. And let’s agree, that’s an exhausting game.

If you’re not sure whether your current website does a good job, here are 11 aspects you can look into to decide whether it’s time for a revamp (listed in no particular order). Know that our Biggest Sale of the year is coming soon. If you want to grab a higher discount code this Black Friday, join our Facebook Community group. That’s where all the secret deals will be shared! 

1. It’s Not Memorable and Doesn’t Stand Out

What was cool 3 years ago, may not be this year. Maybe you were one of the early adopters of a new design style or aesthetic, but that was 2-4 years ago. Look around, everyone has similar website designs, especially if they use them ready out of the box. That’s why we created Flexthemes and Flexblock – to empower you with more design freedom. Create your blocks and page layouts. Make your website look and feel like YOU. It’s all simple and intuitive. No code skills are required. 

 And, you can personalize your mobile site version too, if you want.  

2. It Doesn’t Reflect Your Brand

This one should be straightforward. Your website promotes your business online 24/7. If you’ve rebranded recently, if your photography style changed and evolved, if you’re offering new products and services to your customers – your website should reflect and advocate that change. Otherwise, you’re attracting the wrong type of clients, those who are after your old type of work. This brings us to reason #3.

3. You’re Not Attracting the Right Clients

We explain this in more depth in How Design Affects Your Business Growth article, but the point is – if you are not getting inquiries from the type of clients you want to work with, you are not positioning yourself correctly on the market. One golden rule is to carefully curate your work. Check the content and galleries you show on your website, remove the type of work you don’t want to do in the future (i.e. family, portrait, editorial, etc). Carefully select your BEST, fresh images (the type of projects you want to do more of) and include them on your homepage. This will immediately filter out some of the inquiries which are not a good fit for you. Make sure all your content is consistent, including colors, fonts, icons. An example of consistency in a website would be this.

4. Outdated Theme & Technologies

This one affects your visitors’ experience on your website. “Old school is cool” does not apply when it comes to functionality. The digital world is constantly changing and evolving. Web standards shift each year, dictating new tools and technologies for building a good website. Your clients’ preferences and tastes shift even faster. What was trendy yesterday, may not be next week. Hence, if you want your business to succeed, you need to be agile with your visual presentation and website design.

 If you’ve built your website over 3 years ago, most likely it’s far behind in terms of looks and functionality. It probably has outdated code that can slow down its loading speed or the way it responds on different devices. It may also not be compatible with some of the latest popular browsers. Take our example, 3,5 years ago we launched our first Classic themes with the drag and drop page builder, a year and a half ago we released FlexBlock, and in November 2019 the world greeted the first Flexthemes. 

 The difference between our old, classic themes and the Flexthemes is huge (we explain it here). Building a custom-looking website with our new themes is a whole lot easier. You don’t need to know code, you don’t need to add CSS snippets or hire a technical team. The new visual editor is so simple, your grandma could probably do it (yet please don’t make her do your tasks). 

The bottom line here, if it’s been a while since you’ve built your site, start looking for website design inspiration and a more modern template to use as a base.

5. Mobile Friendly

I sure hope this is not the case, but if you still don’t have a mobile-friendly website – get a new theme NOW! Even if you do have a responsive or adaptive design, you still need to keep up with the latest trends. Newer themes include modern CSS code which allows your site to adapt nicely to any device. They also allow you to hide certain page blocks for mobile and ensure a faster and smoother user experience. Also, you must know that Google cares about the experience you offer to your mobile guests, since over 50% of website traffic comes from portable devices. 

Offering more control to our clients over the design and functionality of their mobile websites has always been an important goal on our list. With Flexthemes, the steering wheel is in your hands. You have access to the mobile view of your website sections, can easily make adjustments, hide or show certain areas of your site to ensure a truly wonderful and unique browsing experience for your mobile guests. 

If you’re not sure how many of your prospects access your website via their phone, if you’re wondering whether it makes sense for you to customize your mobile site – check your site’s stats. You can do that via your Google Analytics account if you have one connected to your website. 

Mobile is important and it won’t go away in the next years. Don’t leave money on the table with a poorly performing mobile site, it’s one of those crucial business aspects that you can’t ignore anymore.

6. Your Website Loads Slow

Aim for a loading time under 4 seconds. If you’re not sure how quickly your site loads, use tools like Pingdom or GTmetrix to check how long it takes for your site to load, and which files are the troublemakers. Poor results could mean you have some work to do. Slow loading speed could be caused by several reasons: heavy, unoptimized images, underpowered hosting and, even an old, poorly performing theme.

The first one can be easily solved by following this Ultimate Guide to Saving Your Images for the Web. For the second one, check out this article describing 5 key criteria to choosing a good hosting provider. Yet, if the issue is caused by an old, outdated website template, you can start shopping for a new one.

 View Flothemes website templates here.

7. Your Bounce Rate is High

This is extremely important. If you’ve been pouring your heart and time into blogging, SEO and marketing, bringing a lot of traffic to your website – yet the second they access your homepage (or any other page), they bounce right off of it – you have a problem. You’re losing leads and potential clients.

A high bounce rate indicates that you’re doing something wrong, either with content, with the navigation of your website, or the overall look and feel on your site. On average, a bounce rate between 40-60% is considered to be OK (this varies depending on your industry).

You can check your bounce rate via Google Analytics. Log in and go to Acquisition >> Overview tab. If it’s higher than 70%, follow these 9 Steps to reducing your Bounce Rate. If it doesn’t help, it’s time for a website redesign, and we do suggest seeking some expert advice in UX and UI.

In case you want to dive deeper into Measuring Performance and Tracking Success for your site, download our SEO guide here.

8. Security

To be honest, new or old, any website can be hacked. The experience is stressful and painful, especially when you lose information, or/and have to rebuild everything from scratch. However, older websites rely on older technology, therefore chances of a security breach are higher. Make sure your theme is updated and follow these 12 steps to make your site more secure.

9. SEO

Let’s start with the basics. Do you have a blog? You should, as it’s a powerful marketing tool to drive more traffic and users to your website, through keywords, internal links and, backlinks.

You also need to know that search engines love good, updated content. Every time you make an update to your site, Google and other search engines crawl and index your pages, thus your site ranking gets recalculated. If you keep your content updated and of GOOD QUALITY, you increase your chances of getting noticed on Search Result pages. Pair that with a charming, good-looking website, and you’re guaranteed more attention.

If SEO is something that you’ve been planning to dive deeper into, check out our SEO guide for photographers. Also, take a look at this incredible post by Dylan M Howell on Content Strategy and How to Blog like and Expert. 

10. Do I need Call to Action?

Of course, you do. And it’s not just a button or link added here and there. It has to be placed strategically, to keep your users engaged with your website and browsing through more content. We explain How Call to Actions work in Design in this article, but the idea is to guide your site visitors through your content to your Best Work, then to your contact form or sales page. If your current website is limited in CTAs (Call to Actions) and doesn’t allow much customization – it’s time to get something more flexible and powerful. With Flexthemes for example, you can easily create new page layouts to support your sales campaigns and convert more users into prospects. They allow you to fully customize any layout, add buttons, images, videos, texts, and other design elements. 

Never leave your site visitors wondering what they should do next. If it’s not subtle and intuitive, they’ll leave and never return. And that’s sadly a lost business opportunity.

11. All those Cool Apps & Integrations

An old outdated website template may not keep up with all the new apps, plugins, and integrations available out there. So, if you want to integrate your favorite Studio Management System, Photo Editing app or, any other useful tools that simplify your workflow – be prepared to update your website on a regular 1-2 year basis, and use the most modern, up to date templates for that. 

[heedthemountain]

Roleplay Rules

Hello and welcome! Thank you for taking a moment to go over the rules and regs of this humble rp blog. My name is KJ.

NSFW threads are tagged under #lemon beginning March 21st, 2019. Feel free to filter them out. (3/21/19)

Rules:

▪This is my safe space. No hate, no jealousy, no pettiness allowed.

▪If I decide I do not wish to roleplay or interact with you, that is my choice. Do not hassle me or try to pressure me, no means no. I do not need to explain myself, please respect my decision to chose who I let into my safe space.

▪I will not have Slade jump right into a sexual relationship. I don't do that in real life, I will not do it here. I enjoy the slow build of a budding romance that may or may not lead to sensual acts. If you came here looking to fulfill your sexual fantasies with a horny viking, YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME. THERE IS THE DOOR.

▪Please ask me before writing my character into any stories or fanfictions. This is my own character, created by myself, and I consider it plagiarism if you use him without my express permission.

▪Each character Slade interacts with is in an entirely different universe, unless otherwise specified. There will be no "cheating" on anyone with another character. (This is all make believe 😁)

▪There will be sexual content so readers please be advised. No one under the age of 18 allowed, please. 

Hard no's:

- NO daddy/mommy/littles kink

- NO urine/feces play

- NO rape scenes (possible mentions)

- NO hardcore gore or explicit torture

- NO breath play

▪Questions or concerns, feel free to message me.

Thank you for reading

Etiquette:

(taken from @your-dark-magic-man-mysterio with permission)

ROLEPLAY ETIQUETTE

1. It’s important to understand that your partner is not an object, they are another human being, just like you.I say this because it is rude to be possessive of a partner.

How is someone being possessive of a roleplay partner?

They get extremely jealous of their partner roleplaying with other, and get upset with their partner for doing so.

They yell at/become upset at the other party roleplaying with their partner and tell them not to do so.

They tell their partner that if they roleplay with someone else that they will no longer roleplay with them.

They attempt to guilt trip their partner into roleplaying with them only by claiming things such as, ‘Am I not good enough?’  'Why do you have to roleplay with others? Do I suck that bad?’

They will tell others that their partner is ‘theirs’. Ex. “You can’t roleplay with Alex…He’s mine!”

They show their possessiveness by causing their character to be extremely clingy to their partner’s character.

It’s important to understand that your roleplay partner is allowed to roleplay with anyone else, and that includes roleplaying with people that are not you. They have that right.

It is not an attack on your roleplaying abilities.

It is not an attack on you as a person.

It is not an attack on their ideal of you as a partner.

Your roleplay partner is allowed to branch out to however many partners they so feel like it, and it is not your place to say that they cannot have any partners outside of you. That’s just rude.

This also includes telling your partner that their character cannot be in any other romantic relationship except with your character. That’s rude.

If your partner has a Multiple Storyline Character, these parallel universes allow your partners character to be in as many relationships as they so choose without them relating in anyway, coinciding in anyway, etc.

Be considerate of your partner and how THEY feel about it. No one likes being guilt tripped. No one likes being yelled at for a hobby that is supposed to be FUN, not stressing. No one likes to be restricted in such a hobby.

It is not your place to tell someone what they can and cannot do in terms of interacting with others. It’s incredibly mean of you to do such a thing and you need to take a step back and see how you could be hurting someone else’s feelings if you realize that you are doing this to someone else.

Don’t be possessive of a roleplay partner. They are not an object. They are allowed to make any decision they want when it comes to roleplay, and you don’t have a say in how many partners they’re allowed to have. Because in the end, no one is obligated to roleplay with you, and for you to put restrictions on someone who is willingly choosing to roleplay with you is just seriously unkind. So, don’t do that.

2. Roleplays are not one-sided. Please – if you ever have any intent on writing with me – don’t expect me to do all the work, or don’t say you want to write with me and not ask me what I think about something. generally, I’m okay with MOST things, but if you’re just going to be creating all the ideas, it doesn’t seem really fair.Don’t go into a roleplay with me expecting to just satisfy YOUR needs before clarifying that. It is an EQUAL thing, and all roleplayers must be treated with an equal amount of respect.

3. You are responsible for your own media experience.

4. There is such a thing as a healthy level of avoidance towards topics that make you feel unwell or even (in a real-life clinical definition of the term) trigger you - but you are the one to actively take care of what you view.

5. Avoiding does not mean policing others.

6. You have no right to tell artists or writers to censor themselves - you may criticize what others do, you may dislike it, that’s fine - but actively asking for censorship when you could easily unfollow or block a person just makes you look incompetent in your use of the internet.

7. Do not give people on tumblr or /any/ website the responsibility for your emotional well-being. Because these people do not even know you so no, you have no right to ask them to take care of you.

8. (AND THIS ONE IS REALLY IMPORTANT) DO NOT FORCE HEADCANONS OR SHIPS ONTO OTHERS. If one says the muses are incompatible, probably they have a good enough reason to and they do not feel comfortable to explain which parts of the interaction they did not like. They might be purposefully avoiding further interactions, because roleplaying with your muse makes them feel uncomfortable. Do not be an ass about it, do not constantly nag them and deal with it. NO, -even if not worded- MEANS NO. 

Edited 5/31/2018

Edited 12/22/2018

Edited 1/6/2019

[kazzouli-blog]

I have a genuine question here, and any feedback is welcome:

Why do we have to be so... at war with each other about the fandoms we're in, even over things like differences in shipping or whatever? It seems too tiring for us to be concerned with. I don't care for or support Loudcest/Lewd House, for example, but I don't see a reason for me to go out of my way to hunt down/insult the people who do. I happen to know a fair amount of people who are into that stuff, or people in general who ship things I don't, and they're perfectly fine human beings. Some of which who have even changed my perspective on these matters, and for that I’m very grateful. They like something I don't, and that's just how life is. You can't control how people feel or prevent them from enjoying what they do. There're always going to be people who see things differently from you, and the sooner you accept that, the more at peace you'll feel. I'll have some things I don't care to see pop up on my dash, but I just keep scrolling because I enjoy the rest of the content I see there and don't want to cut ties with someone because of a couple of things I disagree with. (As a disclaimer, I understand there are people with sensitivities that really prevent them from being able to continue to follow people who show something that make them upset, and I totally get that. I just think it's a bit unfair to antagonize blogs for what they like, within reason.)

Moreover, I also know that there's the issue of younger people being subjected to more adult material on the internet. Say some kid who likes a cartoon wants to look up their favorite character as reference to draw them or something, and in the search results pops up NSFW stuff. It's certainly bad that they have to see something adult-oriented they weren't even looking for in the first place, and that can really mess up how they feel about it, but I can't say that's at the fault of the artists/supporters of the art. It's the filters on the websites that they're using that is failing to differentiate SFW content from NSFW. You can contact the staff of these sites to try to help better the environment in that sense when you come across lewd art with the safe search filter on. It's definitely impossible to have a perfect system that will block out everything, but there are still plenty of improvements to be made.

I would strongly recommend that we bear in mind that we're on the internet. It's a fantastic platform that lets us connect with people across the globe and see wonderful content we love that we otherwise wouldn't get to find, but it's still a really, really dangerous place to be in. You have to be careful when you're on here, as well as start to desensitize yourself from more explicit content and harsher realities for the sake of your own mental health and tolerance. There are tons of websites also that provide exclusively SFW content that you can limit yourself to. In the scenario I made about the child wanting to find a reference picture, there are fan-made wikias that only include screenshots and official artworks of the characters and settings. Maybe make it so that they can rely on those sites specifically for that purpose, and avoid generic search sites such as Google, DeviantArt and tumblr.

Basically what I'm trying to say here is that so much of the drama that we all involve ourselves in is entirely unnecessary. The less you go picking fights or jumping into active ones, the much better you'll feel - and I'm saying this out of personal experience. I used to have a tumblr where I got heavily involved in those crowds where all we did was fight with each other. My stress levels went through the roof and my depression couldn't have been any worse. I hit such a horrible low in my life that I deleted my tumblr and decided to never go back. While I eventually did come back, I swore to myself that I would turn over a new leaf and not associate myself with the discourse and arguments that I used to hop onto; and boy, I am so much happier as a result. I ignore the things I don't like and just share the stuff that I do, simple as that. I think it'd be better for all of us to just accept our differences and treat each other with the respect we all deserve. So long as we're not hurting anyone, why should we feel shame on the things we enjoy? Just live your life and have fun; our time on this Earth is too darn short to get so worked up over the more minor problems of things we love.

Any of you who might feel I’ve targeted you personally with my post, please don’t! I don’t mean any harm with this; I’m just throwing in my own two cents (and this is probably the only time I’ll ever talk about this on here. I’ll only share SFW content for you guys and I don’t intend on changing that). I totally get it if any of you don't want to support me or my blog anymore for what I've said here, because you're perfectly entitled to your own feelings. But please consider some of the things I said here for your own sake. Kindness and tolerance really go a long way for everyone around you. :) Have a wonderful day guys!

[flame-crowned]

Rules

[ Keep in mind that my rules are guidelines for positive interaction- if you’re ever unsure about something, just ask me about it! ]

This blog is, and will always be a place devoid of any material deemed NSFW. And please remember that this not only applies to inappropriate material regarding romantic endeavours, it also extends to graphic violence and ideologically sensitive material. I understand that given the subject material, violence is inevitable to some extent- which I don’t mind, so long as we keep it classy and fairly non-descript. For example, fighting scenes are fine, mentioning injury is fine, but graphic descriptions of bodily harm/gore are not. Any attempts to coerce me into anything involving these themes is not only destined to fail, but may damage any budding friendships as well. Please respect my boundaries!

I appreciate, and to an extent, require decent grammar. I can’t roleplay with you if I can’t understand you! I will more likely than not refuse to roleplay with someone whose writing is difficult for me to understand. I don’t want to risk making a mess because I couldn’t comprehend a post. This, of course, does not apply to typos, which are bound to happen and I will happily overlook :’)

A decent ability to separate IC and OOC is also appreciated. I am not my character, and I will not assume you are yours either. That being said, I won’t take things said or done IC personally, and you are more than welcome to play your character as unfiltered as you like, so long as they don’t violate my other rules.

I am not here for you to air your grievances with my muse. I do not condone or approve of community infighting, OOC character competition, or OOC character hatred, at all. Do not attempt to involve me in any of that. For that matter, OOC ablelist language is destined to get you blocked. You are free to play your character without a filter- however OOC respect, not only to me but to everybody, is paramount, and I will outright refuse to RP with anyone who cannot show basic respect to other people.

I am semi-selective, but I don’t require you to be a mutual to interact. Feel welcome to send me memes and asks! I’ll always try to respond to these. However, if you wish to begin a thread or plot with me, I will examine your blog before agreeing. I’m not particularly picky, and a clear rules/about/biography page can easily win me over :’) I just like to be sure that we’re both going to be on the same page and having fun.

This is a side blog. I can’t follow you here. I can’t stress this enough. Please don’t take it as a sign that I’m not interested in interacting with you if I don’t follow your blog- more likely than not, I certainly am! However tumblr’s technical restrictions mean that to follow back I would have to do so with my primary blog and I’m very picky about who I follow with my primary blog- but if you absolutely require me to follow back, I’ll consider it. I kind of want to keep a little distance between my RP blogs and my primary because it’s my personal art blog and my dash is something I like to reserve for close friends and personal inspiration. Note that if you tend to post/reblog a lot of NSFW or otherwise generally upsetting content, I definitely won’t follow.

I will tag posts containing material that might make people uncomfortable accordingly. I understand that not all uncomfortable material is NSFW, and if a post happens to contain such things as really strong language, offensive ideology, or mentions of uncomfortable topics, I will tag them with a singular word as follows: Ableism, Sexism, etc. If you want to  follow or interact with me and you have a specific discomfort which you would like tagged, just let me know :’) Note that I’m not perfect and some things might fly under the radar, but if you spot them just holler and I’ll be quick to fix it.

[Ask Me About: Romance, if you’re interested in it! It really isn’t my forte, and I don’t tend to engage in romantic roleplay, but if our characters have spent a sufficient amount of time developing a relationship and you think it might be fun to introduce some romantic intentions to the scene, I may agree to it! Just keep in mind that there are obviously going to be limitations, and, of course, let’s keep it classy and chaste.

And again, communication is big for me- if you’re not sure about an idea, just pitch it to me! We can talk. ]